| dc.description.abstract | The Brazilian Atlantic Forest (BAF) is considered one the most important biodiversity hotspots in the world. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most threatened, and with around 60% of Brazil’s population living there, it has been prone to interference and destruction by agricultural activities, resources demand and infrastructure and industry development. The Alto Paranapanema watershed is located within this biome, and it is a southeastern region of the state of São Paulo. One of this region’s main economic activities are agricultural, with livestock, crop and silviculture production leading in importance. This, just in many other places in the BAF, had led to increased deforestation, being reduced down to 7.5% of its original coverage in 2000.
In the year 2012, the Brazilian government revised the 1965 native vegetation protection law called the Forest Act and established a New Forest Act, where among other changes, provided modifications to protection instruments such as Legal Reserves (LR) and Permanent Protection Areas (APP). This new law also created the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR), a mandatory inscription system for rural properties and their owners, creating a nationwide rural database. Using this data base and as well geographical information, it is possible to quantify the coverage of native vegetation (NV) as well as the protection instruments that are used for the conservation and restoration of native vegetation.
This research set out to explore the reasons for variations of these types of coverages (NV, APP, LR), to determine compliance to legal requirements and the identify and characterize the variables and relationships that might help to understand the dynamics of native vegetation coverage and protection and agriculture. Adapting a framework that aims to explain the relationships between different variables and their adoption of sustainable agriculture, secondary data was gathered and quantitatively analyzed to determine the relationships between the different factors considered.
The results showed positive relationships between the native vegetation elements analyzed and size of property. At the same time negative relationships were found with association to farmer associations such as cooperatives, financial assistance reception, and amount of machinery used. Mixed results were gathered regarding age, income, and educational levels completed. Correlations between labor and machinery, age and education, association to cooperatives and machinery, income and property size, and reception of financial assistance and cooperatives where identified, which would be appropriate to consider when planning forest and landscape restoration schemes, since these consider multi-stakeholder interactions. | |
